Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-08-28
FAMOUS MISERS.
Queer Characters How They
saved and What For.
chambers Journal.l

Man is, and always has been, a very
curious compound, Some men seem
born to spend, others to conserve.
This has been the state of matters
from the beginning, and tho causes
originate in the mind of man himself f;
he is their father; his affections and
will are the faculties which become
the immediate instruments of the ma
ture we call thriftless or sordid. The
nature of the spendthrift is easily un-
derstood-at least, so it is said there is
SO much simplicity and recklessness
in it that we generally identify a
spendthrift with a good-natured fellow.
The miser, on the other hand, is an
enigma and mystery. He is one of
the anomalies and absurdities of
nature. Dickens, with his pen and
Angelo with his brush, have portrayed
to our minds the ideal miser. Money
is his soul aim; the man within him
and the world of humanity around him
are but as dust and rubbish compared
with his golden pieces: for the miser
seldom takes paper in lieu OF hard
cash.
But we must not despise the miser
indiscriminately let us rather attempt
to lift some of them at least from the
degraded position they have always
occupied in the public mind. 1t may
never have occurred to Our readers
that the desire to be philanthropic has
induced some men to become pisers.
Nevertheless, this is the case, al
though we may not have had fire.
quent opportunity of verifying this
experience. Thus when Bethlehem
Hospital, London, was built, q
wretched miser of the East End gave
a subscription of G100. When the
collectors called at his residence they
found him scolding servant for
throwing away a match which had
not been burned at both ends. To
him the waste of this match was
worse blow than the giving away of
such large sum. Gurgot, of Mar
seilles, was another confirmed miser;
everyone in the city knew him, and it
is not exaggeration to say every one
hated him for his sordidness. Yet we
know from his will that he scraped
together 100000 in order to furnish
the poor of his native town with a
SOOu NdtCI
Every class of the community sup
plies subjects for the miser list. This
at first sight appears strange. Sup
pose we take the nobility and clergy
classes which we would fancy should
be free of sordidness; and we find
that even among these the malady is
very rampant; indeed, the nobility
have supplied and do supply, most Of
the miser tribe. There have been
very few soldiers like the first Duke
of Marlborough, and yet he was very
sordid individual. To save a sixpence
for carriage hire he would walk, when
an old man, from the public rooms in
Bath to his hotel in all kinds of |
weather. He died worth el 100000,
which he left to his grandson, Lord
Trevors, his bitterest enemy.
There seems to be a certain irony of |
fate in the miser's pains to collect |
money, for generally the produce or
his mean and sparing living falls into
the hands either of thriftless sons or
bitter foes. In spite of the knowledge |
of this, the poor miser grasps and
gathers together all he can lay hands !
upon, thus adding day by day to his
physical and moral ruin.
The life Of Vandille more than JUS
titles this statement. This mans s food !
consisted of bread and milk, with the |
addition of glass OF sour wine on a !
Saturday; his religious mite was one |
farthing per week, and at his death |
he left eS00,000 to the Kings of
France.
One redeeming feature OF the miser's +
character is that he generally suffers
the effect of his sins himself He |
does not punish others. One excep- !
ton to this rule is the life of Audley,
who fiourished in England during the
commonwealth This miser started !
life with 9200, which sum he lent out
to the sons of cavaliers and to clerks
at high rate of interest. His whole |
life was one of cunning and disreputa-
BILE craft, and by such means he accu-
mulated f400, 900, which, however,
reverted to the government.
The keen and earnest craving for
money does not belong to individuals !
only; it has often been characteristic
in the life of nations. The South Sea
bubble in our own country showed |
what thousands would do in the
worship of mammon. But the tulip
mania of Holland, in 1854, surpasses
every other illustration we are able to
cite. Such was the rage for tulips |
that they rose to enormous prices. To
possess tulips was to be rich. One of
these flowers, named the Admiral
Liefken, was worth at mark
ct value 44OO forins; and the Sem
per Augustus brought $500 florins. !
Ii another mania should arise, would |
not there be found thousands of men
and women thronging to swell the |
sordid contingent? Such incidents as
these in the life of a nation show that
running through the whole of society |
there is an undercurrent of sordidness,
which becomes direct and strong
when once the food-gates of public
opinion open their folding leaves.
There may be a difference in degree
between the confirmed miser and
those men who delude and are deluded
by tempting bats, but the cases are of
the same kind.
The miser is very often uncon-
scious of this meanness, and even re-
joices when he sees any other man
display the same quality. The
biography of Dichaus Dichanus
shows this conclusively. This person
was a descendant of the Byzantine
monarchs; but their spirit of lavish
ness was in no way inherited by him,
for during his lifetime he managed by
niggardiness to raise the value of his
possessions to many thousands of
pounds. The great question of his
fife was, to whom should he leave his
money? This problem was solved
for him by means of rather curious
incident. A distant relative of his
sent him letter written on an inch
Of naner This WAS enough Tle